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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814280">in our time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/youwereamazing/pseuds/totherain'>totherain (youwereamazing)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>SEVENTEEN (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Small Town, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Childhood Friends, Falling In Love, Growing Up, M/M, i honestly dont know how to tag but when do i ever, kind of???</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:08:10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,199</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814280</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/youwereamazing/pseuds/totherain</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Right now, seven years old and full of joy, Minghao can’t imagine a place more perfect than this.  His heart is void of longing and his biggest dream is staying right here for the rest of his life. Right now and right here, he is at peace.</p><p>And then Kwon Soonyoung comes into his life with a bang and from there on, never quiets down.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Xu Ming Hao | The8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>33</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in our time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>just a short soonhao fic that i randomly put together this weekend!! i honestly cant tell u why but i just had the sudden urge to dig up something i wrote abt the sounds of small towns last march and then suddenly here i was with 3k of childhood friends to lovers (kinda) soonhao. its a bit out of my usual comfort zone but i wanna challenge myself more this year + break some writing (and thinking) habits ive developed so yeah, guess this is a first step for that. </p><p>enjoy &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Xu Minghao loves silence, enjoys the quiet.</p><p>But silence is a luxury, even in a place as small as his hometown. The small town in the countryside is noisy from morning to evening. Not noisy like the city is, filled with roaring motors and deafening sirens. It’s loud in a gentle way, a reminder that you are alive and not alone, that there is an entire town breathing around you. As someone who has the tendency to get lost in himself, Minghao needs that reminder every once in a while, so he doesn’t mind the noises much, finds them somewhat comforting instead.</p><p>In the morning, Minghao wakes up to the sound of loudly chirping birds and his neighbour who decides that 7 am is as good a time as any to start chopping some wood. Throughout the day, the wind carries over the laughter of playing children and the chattering of the old ladies, the humming of passing by tractors on their way to the fields or the nearby vineyards. In summer, there’s the constant buzzing of a lawn mower in the air, because as it seems, someone is always mowing their lawn somewhere.</p><p>After sunset, the town falls asleep. Even the wildest barbecues here never last long into the dark and the partying teenagers are out in the fields or forest, far away enough to not be heard. It’s Minghao’s favourite time of the day. He enjoys sitting on the balcony wrapped up in a blanket, the only light coming from the stars above him, the only sounds coming from his own breathing. These moments truly belong to him and only him. He stays out there as long as he can, until his mother scolds him and drags him to bed.</p><p>This is why Minghao loves living in a small town, loves his hometown. He was born in a city – miles away in China, before his parents decided to move here when he was a baby. But he feels like it’s his destiny to live in the countryside, it feels like this is what he’s made for, this is where he belongs.</p><p>Later, when he’s grown up a bit more, Minghao is going to learn about the ugly sides of the small town life. But right now, seven years old and full of joy, he can’t imagine a place more perfect than this.  His heart is void of longing and his biggest dream is staying right here for the rest of his life. Right now and right here, he is at peace.</p><p>And then Kwon Soonyoung comes into his life with a bang and from there on, never quiets down.</p><p> </p><p>It’s summer, Minghao has just finished his second year of elementary school and he’s ready for the break lying ahead of him. He’s planning to spend it all outside with his sketchbook and just enjoy the warmth of the sunlight and the peaceful noises of the town.</p><p>Which is exactly what he’s doing the afternoon he meets Soonyoung. He’s sitting on the balcony, in front of a blank page of his sketchbook and just listens. A barking dog in the distance, a train rumbling through town, a bee buzzing around the flower pot.</p><p>And then. <em>Bang.</em></p><p>It’s loud and close and shakes Minghao’s entire body.</p><p>
  <em>Bang. Bang.</em>
</p><p>Someone is hitting against the post that supports the balcony, Minghao realizes. Quickly, he jumps up and runs to the edge, leaning over the railing so he can see the culprit.</p><p>
  <em>Bang. Bang. Bang.</em>
</p><p>It’s a boy roughly his age, puffy cheeks and wild hair. He’s holding a thick wooden stick and repeatedly hitting it against the metal post. Minghao is sure he’s never seen him before, but he looks just like the kids he knows from school, the rowdy ones like Mingyu who always joke around and get into trouble for talking in class. It’s the kind of kids that constantly have green spots on their knees and roam around the town on their bikes, up to no good. It’s the kind of kids Minghao doesn’t particularly get along with and tries to avoid.</p><p>When the boy finally notices Minghao, he looks up to him with a toothy grin. “HEY!” he yells, too loud considering that Minghao’s barely three meters above him. “Do you wanna come down and play?”</p><p>“Is that why you were…” Minghao looks for the right word for whatever it is the boy’s doing right now. “…so loud?”</p><p>“I wanted to get your attention.” For good measures, the boy slams the stick against the post once again and laughs.</p><p>Minghao winces at the loud noise. “Why?”</p><p>“Because I want to play with you, “ the boy replies simply.</p><p>“But why?”</p><p>He just shrugs. “Just because. Are you coming down or not?” There’s still a grin on his face, his head tilted as he waits for his answer.</p><p>For a moment, Minghao hesitates. If this was one of the kids from his school, he’d stay up here by himself and pretend nothing ever happened. But none of the kids at school have ever smiled like that at him – so genuine and excited.</p><p>“Okay, “ he says.</p><p>And the smile on the boy’s face widens.</p><p> </p><p>On that day, Minghao finds out that the boy is obsessed with tigers and that he loves adventures and that his name is Soonyoung and that his family just moved in next door. More importantly, he learns that he’s loud. There’s never a moment of silence with him because he fills every silence. He talks like he’s trying to make himself heard against a raging storm and laughs like he’s trying to drown out all other noises. Even when he isn’t talking, he’s creating the soundtrack to his own life, accompanying every action with humming, singing or dramatic sound effects.</p><p>Minghao always thought he hated loud people because he doesn’t like the loud kids at school. Like Mingyu, who can’t keep his voice down and always yells over the entire schoolyard. But with Soonyoung, Minghao doesn’t hate it. It’s nice, actually, to have someone to listen to.  </p><p>From that day on, Soonyoung appears under Minghao’s balcony every day. <em>Bang. Bang. Bang. </em>They go on adventures together, Minghao shows him all his favourite spots in town, Soonyoung teaches Minghao all the games he knows and by the time Minghao has to go home for dinner, his cheeks ache from smiling and his jeans are painted in green and brown. Just like that, Soonyoung becomes Minghao’s summer and fills it with elbows scraped on asphalt, tongues coloured by popsicles and tummies that hurt from laughing too much.</p><p>One of Minghao’s favourite things about summer is the heavy summer rain. The sound of the rain drops echoes a bit too loudly in your ears and becomes the only thing you can hear but the air smells clean and the water tastes fresh on your tongue and feels warm on your skin. You run but not because you want to escape the rain or get somewhere but just for the sake of running, just for the thrill of it. You feel careless, light, free.</p><p>Being with Soonyoung, Minghao thinks, feels exactly like that.</p><p> </p><p>One day, they are lying flat on the pavement just because they can, their sweaty hands intertwined between each other. Soonyoung’s humming an unfamiliar tune under his breath.</p><p>“You really can’t stand silence, can you?” Minghao asks and turns his head to look at his face.  </p><p>Soonyoung stops humming, his expression growing dark. “I hate it.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>Minghao doesn’t expect a real answer, expects Soonyoung to come up with a ridiculous reason or just shrug and say “Just because”, his favourite reason for doing anything, apparently. But he surprises him.  </p><p>“Silence means something is wrong, “ Soonyoung explains, unusually quiet. “When there’s noise, things are happening, things are moving… there’s hope, you know? But once it turns silent… That’s when something is wrong.”</p><p>Minghao doesn’t understand what Soonyoung means, doesn’t get it. In his world, things are wrong when his mother yells at him and in the very serious cases that he’s never experienced, when sirens and alarms go off. “I don’t get it, “ Minghao says.</p><p>Soonyoung turns back to the sky. “You’re lucky.” And then he changes the topic, acts like nothing has ever happened and Minghao doesn’t bring it up again.</p><p> </p><p>Between summer and fall, there’s a moment of time for Minghao to worry. Worry that now that the days are growing shorter, now that they are going back to school, things will change. But when he leaves his house on the first school day, the first thing he hears is Soonyoung’s excited scream. “First day of school!”</p><p>Things do change. But no matter how many friends Soonyoung makes at school, at the end of the day it’s always Minghao he walks home with. And that’s how Minghao knows that Soonyoung is a constant in his life. He feels at peace and years pass in identical cups of ice cream, shared bags of chips and litres of coke.</p><p>But Minghao learns that the whispers of the small town aren’t enough for a boy who despises the quiet. Soonyoung dreams of the screaming city, dreams of crowded places and streets that never sleep.</p><p>“I feel like I’m meant for big things, “ he tells Minghao when he’s twelve. “Something more than this place can offer me.”</p><p>And Minghao agrees. Soonyoung is meant for big things, meant for the kind of life lived in the spotlight and filled with applause. It feels inevitable, determined by destiny, that Soonyoung leaves. Unlike Minghao, he doesn’t belong here, doesn’t belong to the small town life.</p><p>Back then, it’s unimaginable for Minghao that there’s a future where Soonyoung isn’t the one to leave.</p><p>“What do you want to do when you’re old?” Soonyoung asks.</p><p>Minghao doesn’t know how to answer that because all he wants to do is stay right here, with Soonyoung by his side. “I like it here, “ he replies instead.  </p><p>“You want to stay here?” Soonyoung asks in disbelief. “But why?”</p><p>“Just because.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Things change.</p><p>Soonyoung falls in love. Over and over again, a different guy every year.</p><p>It starts with Choi Seungcheol, his first lasting crush. He’s captain of the local soccer team, so for one long spring, Minghao finds himself at the stands of the field every weekend, Soonyoung’s cheering blasting in his ears.</p><p>After Seungcheol, there’s Lee Seokmin, his first kiss. It happens at Minghao’s 14<sup>th</sup> birthday party, celebrated in a small circle with his very few friends from school and Soonyoung. For weeks, he has to listen to Soonyoung gush about the kiss.</p><p>And then there’s Kim Mingyu, his first boyfriend. Of course, of all people, it has to be Kim Mingyu who is everything Minghao isn’t. They start going out the summer Soonyoung turns 16 and it’s the first time Minghao has to share Soonyoung over the summer.</p><p>Minghao falls in love. Over and over again, but always with the same person.</p><p>When he’s 13 and sitting next to Soonyoung on the bleachers next to the soccer field, he notices that Soonyoung smells good, clean. And even though Minghao has been this close to Soonyoung dozens of times, he’s never noticed until now. Somehow, the realization sticks with him, keeps him up at night and makes him feel a bit dizzy.</p><p>When he’s 14 and listening to Soonyoung talk about his first kiss with Seokmin, he starts wondering what Soonyoung’s lips taste like. It creates an image in his head that he can’t get rid of, a daydream of him kissing Soonyoung. His heart starts racing in his chest and never slows down when he’s around Soonyoung.</p><p>When he’s 15 and lying in bed next to Soonyoung, Minghao thinks about how nice it feels to hold him. How comfortable and familiar it is to have Soonyoung in his arms, as if he belongs there, as if they were made to hold each other. It makes him feel safe and warm.</p><p>He never says anything because he doesn’t want things to change, stores every moment with Soonyoung in his heart. In a few years, Soonyoung is going to leave and Minghao is going to stay. What Minghao is feeling right now won’t matter anymore. Falling in love hurts, he thinks, but at least he still has Soonyoung by his side.</p><p> </p><p>“I broke up with Mingyu, “ Soonyoung tells him when he’s 17.  </p><p>“What?” Minghao looks up from where he’s working on an assignment. “Why?”</p><p>Soonyoung’s expression is unreadable. “I thought he was everything I wanted and he was but… I realized it’s not what I want after all.”</p><p>“Then what do you want?” Minghao asks.</p><p>For a while, there’s only the sound of Soonyoung tapping his finger against his table. “Someone who listens.”</p><p><em>I listen, </em>Minghao thinks. He doesn’t say it out loud though.</p><p> </p><p>Things change.</p><p>Feelings don’t have to be acknowledged or said out loud to change things, Minghao finds out. Maybe things could have stayed the same if they talked about it, but it all hangs between them unsaid and they drift apart, making room for all the secrets and all the stuff they can’t share anymore.</p><p>It’s when Minghao unconsciously starts calling Junhui from his class his best friend that he notices that it isn’t Soonyoung anymore. They still go to school together, still take the bus back home together, but they part ways on the street. Now Junhui is the one who fills Minghao’s silences.</p><p>And then their last summer before graduation arrives and Soonyoung doesn’t appear under Minghao’s balcony. Not that Minghao would know, because he isn’t sitting on the balcony.  For his 18<sup>th</sup> birthday, Soonyoung gets a car and he stops taking the bus to school. Not once does he offer to give Minghao a ride.</p><p>For a while, he hears Soonyoung’s absence in every silence. But just like everything, Minghao’s sure that things will change and he’ll be okay again.</p><p> </p><p>After graduation, Minghao hangs in the air, lost, unsure of what to do with his life. It was always his plan to stay but that’s a dream he came up with when he was seven years old. Now, he’s almost 18 and he’s learned that even if he thinks he belongs to the small town, the other people in it don’t think so as well. That’s the thing about small towns – if you don’t fit in, you never truly belong.</p><p>Minghao applied for the closest university, planned on commuting there every day. But with the town feeling empty and silent around him, there’s nothing he would like to do less. And then Junhui suggests he should come to the city with him, go to university there.</p><p>Finally, Minghao admits to himself that holding onto a childhood dream is pointless. He still loves his hometown, always will, but he needs to accept that things change, needs to let himself change and grow. So he packs his suitcases and follows Junhui.</p><p>That summer, ten years after Soonyoung arrived, Minghao leaves.</p><p>Minghao learns that there are a lot of things he was wrong about. In a way, he finds the city quieter than the small town. Back home, you have a connection to everything and you know the meaning of every noise, recognize every voice, know who is driving past just by the sound of the motor. Here in the city, it all blends into a mix of things that don’t concern you, easy to ignore and blend out. In a way, all the sounds in the city feel far away to Minghao.</p><p>In the city, Minghao grows up. Just after a few months, Junhui gives him a tight hug and tells him how proud he is of how far he’s come. He blooms, starts wearing the eccentric outfits he’s always dreamed of, not afraid of standing out anymore. He makes friends at university and outside of it. Minghao builds himself a home in the city, starts figuring out what he wants in life, what he wants to be.</p><p>He falls in love. Over and over again, with the city and its people.</p><p>It starts with Hong Joshua at a college party when Minghao’s 19. He smiles when Minghao tells him that he’s his first kiss and looks at him with gentle eyes. They hook up at a few other parties, but nothing really comes out of it.</p><p>Then there’s Wonwoo, Minghao’s first boyfriend. He’s smart and sweet and a good listener but awfully quiet. There are a lot of awkward silences between them and even if Minghao used to think that he likes silence, he grows tired of it quickly.</p><p>After him comes Vernon, who’s so damn cool and laughs a lot and lives freely. They’re on one wavelength on most matters and it’s comfortable to be with him. For a good year, Minghao waits for his heart to start racing, waits for the dizzy feeling in his chest. It never comes, so he lets Vernon go.</p><p>He falls in love but it’s never enough.</p><p>From time to time, he wonders how Soonyoung is doing wherever he is right now. If he’s living his dream. What he would say if he saw Minghao right now, turning into a city boy himself. It never leaves him, stays with him forever because there’s too much that reminds him of Soonyoung, too many memories that haunt him miles away from where they were made.</p><p>And then Minghao is 23, freshly graduated from college and trying to figure out how to make money with his art degree now. His mother begs him to come home because he hasn’t been in years, has always made his family come visit him. So he packs his bags and returns home for the summer.</p><p>He returns, sure that Soonyoung is miles away in a different city.</p><p>“Are you going to talk to Soonyoung?” his mother asks him one morning.</p><p>Minghao looks up from his breakfast. “Is he also back for the summer?”</p><p>“Back?” His mother looks confused. “He never left.”</p><p>Oh.</p><p>That evening, Minghao sits on the balcony and enjoys the sounds of the small town. It’s quieter than it is in the city, it really is, but it feels closer and louder in Minghao’s ears. The chatter of the big family barbecuing a few houses down, music coming from across the street, a crying baby, a door opening.</p><p>And then.</p><p>
  <em>Bang.</em>
</p><p>(Things have changed. They are both older, they don’t know every single thing about each other anymore. Soonyoung’s voice comes out softer, the volume turned down compared to all those years ago. Sometimes, he still tries to avoid silence – rather puts on music or the TV as a background noise – but he’s learned to love the quiet. He works an office job now and teaches kids Taekwondo on the side, a life far from what he wanted as a kid.)</p><p>
  <em>Bang. Bang.</em>
</p><p>(But there are constants. He's still obsessed tigers and he still loves adventures and he’s still Soonyoung, still carries around big dreams. He still smells good. He still makes Minghao feel careless, light, free.)</p><p>
  <em>Bang. Bang. Bang.</em>
</p><p>Soonyoung looks up at him with a toothy grin. “Do you want to come down?”</p><p>
  <em>Bang.</em>
</p><p>“Okay.”</p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you for reading! &lt;3 come find me on <a href="https://twitter.com/ahlovesc?s=20"> twt </a> / <a href="https://curiouscat.qa/ahlovesc"> cc </a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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